Since chikungunya virus (CHIKV) emerged on an epidemic scale on islands in the Indian Ocean, and subsequently invaded the Americas, Vector-Borne and Zoonotic Diseases has published numerous articles, including a dedicated issue in 2015 (Volume 15, Issue 4). The introduction of chikungunya virus into the Americas was preceded by West Nile virus in 1999, and an inevitable question was,‘‘What would be next?’’With over 500 other arthropod-borne viruses to choose from, it would be a fool or a time traveler to predict with any degree of certainty, but we now know the answer, and the answer is Zika virus (ZIKV), named after the Zika forest in Uganda from where it was originally isolated in 1947 (Dick, et al. 1952). History has shown us that when a virus is introduced into a new region and new ecosystem, one should expect the unexpected. New vectors may be involved in the transmission cycle and diseases in vertebrates with which the virus did not evolve, may be more severe than occurs in endemic regions. Yellow fever virus in the Americas is fatal to new world primates, West Nile in the Americas is fatal to many bird species, CHIKV outside of Africa and Asia seemed to be associated with some fatal infections and mutated to be transmitted more efficiently by the Asian tiger mosquito, Aedes (Ae.) albopictus (Tsetsarkin, et al. 2007). Despite these lessons, in the last few years researchers and physicians have reported more unusual characteristics with ZIKV than for most other emerging viruses. Human infections of ZIKV have occurred in several African and Asian countries, but in 2007 an outbreak on the Pacific Island of Yap resulted in 185 suspected cases and 59 probable cases (Duffy, et al. 2009). This first report of ZIKV outside of Africa or Asia was followed by another novel event when a 2007 outbreak in Gabon was attributed to the Asian tiger mosquito, Ae. albopictus, being the primary vector. Although ZIKV can infect several different species of mosquito, prior to 2007, Ae. aegypti was always the vector for human epidemics. This capacity to be transmitted by two species of mosquito that preferentially feed on people exacerbates an already difficult situation. Both species thrive in close proximity to people, but while Ae. aegypti will use discarded containers and often breed very close to or even in the home, Ae. albopictus often breeds in less accessible areas such as the water-filled leaf axils of plants. This means that control methods for one species do not necessarily control the other. Furthermore, when populations of Ae. aegypti are reduced, the opportunistic invasive Ae. albopictus may rapidly move into an area.

As with any blood-borne pathogen, transmission via contaminated blood, for example by transfusion is always a possibility (Musso, et al. 2014), however, another relatively new discovery related to ZIKV is the capacity for sexual transmission (Foy, et al. 2011) probably due to survival of the virus in semen (Musso, et al. 2015). Although in 2014 Besnard (Besnard, et al. 2014) reported perinatal transmission from mothers to newborns, nobody was prepared for what is happening since ZIKV was introduced into Brazil in May of 2015. Predictably, the virus has spread to neighboring countries in the region and there have been travel-related cases in several countries including the United States and the United Kingdom. Recent new adult consequences of ZIKV infection have included Guillain-Barre syndrome (Oehler, et al. 2014), however, the tragedy of Zika in Brazil, is a hitherto unseen phenomenon of newborns being delivered with microcephaly–reduced brain size–apparently as a result of their mothers being infected during pregnancy …